Due to the current legislative trend toward competency-based education, and the accompanying minimal competency testing, a variety of local school districts and state education agencies are concurrently developing programs to meet the standards set by their state's legislation. This selective bibliography was compiled in order to aid those…

Part of the plan by the American Federation of Teachers (AFT) to prepare training materials and conduct conferences on improving teachers' use of standardized tests was to survey a representative sample of elementary/secondary teachers. This survey ascertains teacher preparation and knowledge in testing, teacher assessment of the importance of…

The items of the Florida minimal competency test have never been validated as measures of "survival skills," and the pass/fail standards were set mindlessly and capriciously. (Author/IRT)

One of the major concerns of the California school district represented in this case study centered on the possible legal problems associated with minimum competency testing (MCT). The responses of the district to the California law regarding MCT, and to six potential problem areas, are documented. (LC)

This review of the background and current status of state level activities in testing documents the shift in locus of educational control from local school districts to state agencies, the key dimensions characterizing such programs, factors influencing their implementation and their possible impact. (Author/AEF)

Several aspects of national competency tests are discussed: two conceptualizations; arguments pro and con; the federal perspective; a distillation of support and opposition to arguments judged unique to national competency tests; and a hypothetical procedure for implementation. (MH)

Data collected on the Eastern Kentucky University College of Education by the Office of Educational Research and Evaluation for the 1980-81 academic year are presented. Information is included on: (1) basic skills and personality tests; (2) administration of the National Teachers Examination; (3) competency examinations; (4) establishing validity…

Assessment programs, which have recently been implemented in colleges around the country, have indirectly affected the quality of education in ways that are both researchable and measurable. Admissions and placement testing affect educational quality by separating high and low achievers, and making it possible for high-level texts to be used and…

Kansas law requires setting passing scores for the reading and mathematics competency test for 2nd, 4th, 6th, 8th, and 11th grade students, administered annually since April of 1980. New objective-referenced tests are prepared each year. Both judgmental (Angoff, Ebel, and Nedelsky) methods and empirical (contrasting groups and borderline) methods…

Discussed are the procedures implemented in the Orleans Parish Schools in response to the Louisiana state-mandated promotional testing program (Act 750, 1979), and concerns regarding its value. Recent findings raise fundamental questions about whether an exclusively skills-focused curriculum in the early years provides the needed grounding in…

To assure that students graduating from the institutions of higher education in Georgia possess basic academic literacy, an essay test was devised to provide system-wide information on the status of student competence in the areas of reading and writing and to identify those students who do not attain the expected levels of competence. The…

The activities and results of the first year of a two-year student assessment pilot program are described, based on a 1978 mandate by the Kansas Legislature requiring the development of minimum competency objectives in the areas of reading and mathematics for students in grades 2, 4, 6, 8, and 11 and instruments for assessing those competencies.…

Procedures for administering the Proficiency Testing Program, adopted by the Idaho State Department of Education, are explained in this test administration manual. The tests are described as given on a district optional basis to ninth grade students in the basic skills areas of reading, writing, spelling, and mathematics. Criterion-referenced…

Most people seem to think the test will lead to improvement in education. Teachers, however, feel they are being made scapegoats and blacks feel that one crop of eleventh graders is being punished for not being able to make up in one year what they haven't learned in eleven. (Author/IRT)